Integrity Score 240
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Chapter 2 continues...
In furthering the objective of this targeting, Islam and Christianity, more so the latter, have been able to leverage the influence of prominent Hindus themselves, who wittingly (for money), or unwittingly (because of a programmed mindset of being defensive about being a Hindu and thereby being ready to ape the West) are tools of this targeting.
What is the nature and scope of this targeting, and is there a way for us to end it be conciliation with Christians and Muslims? In other words, can we seek to end religious conversion in India today by the ancient Hindu way of shashtrathas as Hindu saints did—as for example Adi Sankara did with Buddhism & Uttara Mimamsa theologies and Azhwars and Nayanars saints in the south did with Jainism? Will indeed Christians and Muslims recognize the sanctity of shashtratas?
There is a serious problem here. An interesting study of Sarah Claerhout and Jakob De Roover titled: “The Question of Conversion in India” [Economic and Political Weekly, July 9, 2005] concludes, that Hindus and Christians have fundamentally different and mutually exclusive concepts of religion and thus also in their approaches to the question of conversion. Hence, say the authors, for Hindus and Christians to dialogue on conversion would be fruitless because they will have “great difficulties making sense of each other’s statements and arguments”. This is because Hindus do not consider any religion as wholly false, and because as Gandhiji put it, all religions have some errors in them. Since according to the Hindu, all religions lead to God, hence there is no need for forcing a conversion. The Christian [and Muslim] thinks otherwise: that his is the only true religion, and it is God’s work to convert heathens and kafirs to this only true religion.
I have thus come to the conclusion after much study and observing what has been, and is happening in India, that there is a fundamental disconnect between the religious outlook of Hindus and the Christians and Muslims which makes it impossible for a fruitful debate and mutual understanding on the question of religious conversion.
to be continued...